The Adventure Zone: Live from the Incipisphere
by Florian Knox
Summary: Our heroes have their retirement interrupted to protect their homes from an entity that wanders from universe to universe, leaving destruction in its wake. But this time, they're looking for it. Let me tell you about... The Adventure Zone!


Your name is VRISKA SERKET

Up until recently, your hobbies included BEING A TACTICAL GENIUS, KICKING ASS with YOUR BEST FRIEND and MOIRAIL and HEROICALLY SACRIFICING YOURSELF TO TRAP A BIG GREEN CRYBABY IN A DYING UNIVERSE.

That was supposed to be it. Your final stand. A pretty damn high note to go out on.

If only things would stop Keep Happening.

== Be the third person

You can't be the third person! You haven't even been a first person yet!

== No, the perspective

Oh okay.

* * *

It had been almost half a sweep since Vriska had woken up in a crater outside of Goldcliff, with nothing but the pyjamas on her back and half a juggalo in her lap. She had gotten to work immediately and drawn three conclusions:

1) This world ran on weird FLARP logic.  
2) Lord English was probably already here.  
3) It was, as always, up to her to fix everything.

(Terezi would say she was backsliding. But Terezi wasn't here.)

The night she appeared on this world, the battlewagon racers who found her said they'd been chasing a falling star but found her instead. Loud, bright and falling at terminal velocity. They'd given her a ride back to town, but were otherwise unwilling to drop everything, forsake their livelihoods and form an army under her command. Chumps.

So she'd spent the last local year searching for a lead. Reports of falling stars, rumours of green men- anything that gave her some direction. To no avail. However, during her search, one story kept cropping up.

Story and Song. The battle against an all consuming force intent on devouring not only this universe, but every universe. It didn't get her any closer to Lord English- The Hunger's MO was entirely at odds with how he operated.

But it did lead her to some potential allies.

It had taken threats, bribes and some good old fashioned, homemade luck to set up this meeting in a smoky Neverwinter tavern- a meeting with three of the greatest heroes in the land.

"Un8elieva8le!" she slammed a mug of frothy amber liquid down on the table, adding another blotch to the heavily stained wood. "You want twenty-thousand gold pieces for what amounts to harpooning wigglers in a fluid-crate? Give me a 8r8k!"

Resting his beautiful face on a delicate, manicured hand, the elf sitting opposite her gave an exaggerated sigh. "Listen darling, if you wanted to hire the best then you should have brought more than pocket change."

"I dunno Taako, if this Lord English is really as bad as she says, shouldn't we hear her out?" The dwarf to her right chimed in. Though his face was worn and sunbeaten, his eyes were kind and warm. His right arm was gnarled and wooden but moved with the suppleness of flesh- evidence of his good standing with the God of nature.

"So I'm thinking we start asking around Goldcliff. If that's where you showed up, maybe someone saw something else," said the final occupant of the booth. A giant of a man, his rugged face was framed by prodigious sideburns and a chiselled jawline. He'd decided they were helping from the moment they sat down. "Maybe we ask Ango- have you spoken to him lately Taako?"

"Slow down there big guy. Look, Taako- that's me, hi- has not agreed to any of this!" the elf interrupted, his broad-brimmed sun hat wobbling as he crossed his arms. "If you two want to waste your retirement years doing charity work, that's on you. I do not work for free. Have you tried those chumps at the BOB?"

"Here I thought I was dealing with professionals," Vriska muttered, unlacing a small blue pouch from the belt of her adventurer's garb and tossing it to the elf. Her year on this plane had been spent doing more than just gathering intel. She'd relived the glory days of her FLARPing youth. Fighting monsters, claiming treasure- albeit with slightly less murder this time around. It wasn't like the old days, where she could just dominate her way to the top and force the losers to be lususlunch so that she wouldn't be. She was better than that now.

Needless to say, when Taako peered into the small blue bag of holding he was satisfied with the hoard of gold and jewels within. Reaching into the pouch, he pulled out a handful of gems and laid them on the table. With a fraction of the pouch's value on display, Taako sighed deeply and surreptitiously stowed the remainder away within his robes. "Well boys, it's beneath our usual pay-grade but since it's for a good cause, who am I to say no? Let's just split this three ways and call it our civic duty, sound good?"

"Emeralds? Do we accept emeralds?" Magnus mused, scratching at his stubbled chin.

"But Taako, this isn't going to split three ways," Merle objected, tallying the gemstones quickly on his fingers. "There's, let's see, eleven emeralds. If we divvy this up, someone's going to miss out!"

"Oh, you're right, what a travesty! Nothing for it then, I'll just take three and you boys can split the remainder evenly. I just hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for you." Thus said, Taako returned three of the emeralds to Vriska's extra-dimensional pouch, where they were swiftly swallowed by the pile of treasure therein.

"Ah- Taako!" Moved by his apparent selflessness, Magnus pushed an emerald towards Taako. "Please, I insist."

"Well, if you say so big fella," Taako shrugged, pocketing the fourth gemstone.

"If you're quite done," Vriska interrupted drily, steering the conversation back on track, "I've 8een searching for a lead on Lord English's wherea8outs for months, with no success. The fact that this entire universe isn't already a smoking crater means he must still 8e recovering from the weapon that was supposed to defeat him. That means we still have time- time I can't afford to waste interrog8ing every 8umpkin from here to West8reak. That's where you come in. If you've got any favours that could help track him down, cash 'em in now. 8ecause if he regains his full power, time won't be on our side."

"Right," Magnus nodded gravely, turning from the grey-skinned woman to address Taako. "I still think we should try Angus. If he doesn't know where this Lord English is hiding, then he'll be able to find out. You're his favourite Taako, why don't you give him a call?"

"Ugh, fine but for the record I'm only doing it because the world may be in danger," Taako protested, pulling on a simple cord he wore as a necklace and retrieving a blue, softly glowing stone out from inside his frilled shirt. "Yo Ango, you there my man?"

"Uh- Hello sir?" the voice of a young boy spoke through the necklace, a little crackly but audible through the stone of farspeech. "I'm in the middle of class at the moment, so-"

"Oh good so you're not busy," Taako cut him off, idly examining his nails as he leant back in his chair. "Look McDonald we're in the middle of a case so we can't talk long, but we thought we'd cut you in for old time's sake. Our client here fell from the sky and is huntin' down a monster by the name of Lord English that woulda come down the same way. That mean anything to you?"

"I'm afraid not sir," Angus replied, his tone a mix of frustration and embarrassment. "I do remember reading about some falling stars last year- wait, is your client the woman that fell from the sky? Sirs-"

"Mr. McDonald what is all this?" a disappointed voice interrupted from the other end of the stone of farspeech. A chorus of distant laughter echoed mockingly out of the stone, in the particularly vindictive way only children can manage. Merle let out a small aw of solidarity, a kindred spirit with Angus in this moment. He'd been on the receiving end of that kind of ridicule before and when he came out the other side, he resolved to preach the Word to teens to stop this kind of behaviour. His wooden hand creaked in protest as it clenched into a fist, responding to an unspoken ache in his chest. Perhaps he should pay this school a visit.

"Coach Taylor noticed," Angus mumbled, dejected. "Sirs I have to go- if you're working with the woman from Goldcliff, I have some bad news for you. Another star fell the same night as she did, but it fell into the Underdark. I'll look into it some more, but-" a shrill whistle drowned whatever Angus was going to say, until the stone went silent.

"Well well well, looks like you 8oys live up to the hype! A matter of minutes and we already have a lead!" Vriska cheered with a shark-like grin. "You heard the kid- get your affairs in order tonight. We leave for the Underdark in the morning."


End file.
